Step BASIC ACTIVITY - Create A Forest Ecosystem And .

arborday.org/postercontest Canopy is formed by the mass of intertwinedbranches, twigs, and leaves of the tall, maturetrees. The crowns of the dominant trees receivemost of the sunlight. This is where most of thetree’s food is produced. The canopy forms a shady,protective umbrella over the rest of the forest.Much of the forest life exists in the canopy. An emergent layer exists in tropical rain forestsand is composed of a few scattered trees thattower over the canopy.Explain that in any forest ecosystem, each layer in theforest offers a different habitat site for forest inhabitants. Each layer has its own climate, based on differences in light, temperature, humidity, and wind. Eachlayer provides a home and food for specific plants andanimals.Have students look at the Rain Forest InformationSheets. Explain that these sheets show just a fewof the millions of different kinds of trees, plants, andanimals that exist in tropical rain forests. In a tropical rain forest ecosystem, each forest layer is home tounique plants and animals, many not found anywhereelse in the world. Thousands of insects may live ineach tree.Ask students to look at the information sheets and findan animal whose “rain forest habitat” includes theemergent layer. (Harpy eagle) The emergent layercan be over 200 feet high. Emergent trees are exposedto full sun and strong winds. Only a few of the rainforest animals make their home in the emergent layer.Ask students to name an animal or plant that lives inthe canopy. (Spider monkey, sloth, etc.)The rain forest canopy is the most diverse place onEarth. Hundreds of thousands of plants and animalscall the rain forest canopy home. Many never touchthe ground during their lifetime. The canopy is arich food source of fruits, flowers, leaves, and beries. Thick, woody vines called lianas are found in thecanopy. These vines can be as big around as a person.Epiphytes, such as orchids, mosses, and bromeliads,are plants that grow without soil right on the canopytrees. Bromeliads have a cup-like shape that catchesrainwater. Insects lay their eggs and get food fromthe water-holding bromeliad. Poison-arrow frogs carrytheir tadpoles piggyback to a bromeliad and depositthem in the plant “pool” where they feed on algae andmosquito larvae.Tree frogs stay close to bromeliads to catch insects.Snakes are nearby to capture frogs, birds arrive to eatthe snakes. and the food chain continues.Ask students to find an animal or plant that lives orgrows in the understory. (Jaguar, coffee tree, etc.)Small palms, young canopy trees, and woody shrubsgrow in the rain forest understory. They often havehuge leaves to try to catch what little sun filtersthrough from the canopy. Trees grow slowly until acanopy tree dies and falls, then the young trees takeadvantage of the shaft of sun and grow rapidly towardthe sky. Many animals live here, including snakes,frogs, parakeets, jaguars, and the largest concentrationof insects.What animals live on the forest floor? (Tapir, capybara,etc.) Only 2% of the sunlight reaches the rain forestfloor. The forest floor is covered with ferns, mushrooms, fungi, and a layer of rotting plant material (leaflitter) that has fallen from the layers above. The air isstill and the humidity is very high with temperaturesbetween 80-85 degrees year round. In these conditions, the forest litter and dead trees on the floordecompose very rapidly releasing nutrients into therain forest’s shallow soil. A leaf that might take oneyear to decompose in a temperate forest will disappear in just six weeks on the rain forest floor! Manytrees have wide buttress roots for support as well asother shallow roots that let the tree absorb many ofthe soil nutrients as quickly as possible before theyare washed away by the rain. Large mammals, suchas tapirs, forage for roots and tubers. Termites, cockroaches, beetles, centipedes, millipedes, and earthworms, along with the fungi, use the organic litter as asource of food.Concept #4: A forest provides many benefits.National Arbor Day Foundation 9

Step 1: Discover the importance of diverse forest ecosystems - BASIC ACTIVITYBackground information: Forests are great providers.They are a source of energy, influence water quality, preserve soil, absorb carbon dioxide, and createoxygen. Forests provide shelter and food for a varietyof living things, they provide raw materials for manyof the products used by humans, and they offer opportunities for recreation.Not only is the tropical rain forest home to millionsof plants and animals, many products we use in oureveryday lives come from the rain forest. Bananas,avocadoes, pineapples, pepper, ginger, vanilla,shade-grown coffee, and cashews are all rain forestproducts. Chicle, used in chewing gum, comes froma tropical tree. Chocolate, from the cacao seed, isalso native to the tropical rain forest and oil from thecacao seed is used in suntan lotions, cosmetics, andsoaps. Latex, from the rubber tree, is used in makingflexible tires for heavy equipment.About one-fourth of all the medicines we use comefrom rain forest plants. The rosy periwinkle containsa chemical that fights leukemia (blood cancer).Curare, from a tropical vine, is used as an anestheticand to relax muscles for surgery. More than 2,100varieties of rain forest tropical plants possess cancerfighting properties. and there may be many thathave not even been discovered yet.Discussion: Ask students how many like chocolate?Vanilla? Pineapples? Cashews? Gum? Who has a family member that drinks coffee? Explain that all theseproducts come from the rain forest.Ask how many have ever had to take medicine whenthey were sick or know someone with cancer? Pointout the rosy periwinkle on the Rain Forest Information Sheets. Explain that one out of every fourmedicines we use comes from rain forest plants. Therosy periwinkle contains a chemical that helps peoplewith a blood cancer called leukemia.Concept #5: Altering a forest environmentaffects all living things and interrelationshipsin an ecosystem.Background information: When tropical rain forestproducts like fruits, spices, cacao, rubber, and plantsfor medicines are harvested, little or no damage isdone to the rain forest. However other practices doaffect rain forests. “Slash and burn” agriculture, cattleranching, mining, and logging have all contributed tothe loss of millions of acres of tropical rainforest.Animals and native people alike lose their homeswhen rain forests are cut down.In “slash and burn” agriculture large areas oftropical rain forest are burned and cleared to growcrops. Burning huge areas of rain forest releasescarbon dioxide, causing changes in wind currents andrainfall around the world. Many scientists believeburning the rain forest adds to the greenhouse effectand contributes to global warming. Without the rainforest to soak up rain and release it slowly, floods anddroughts become more common. The delicate soilbecomes eroded and barren. After two or three years,the soil is so depleted of nutrients it will neitherproduce a crop nor grow back to rain forest. Farmersand ranchers move on to clear other sections of rainforest.Discussion: Explain that as the world’s populationgrows, the number of people living near the rain forestsis increasing. The demand for farmland and othernatural resources is also increasing. Rain forests arebeing cut and burned. the impacts of which affectland, water, animals, and native people. Includeadditional background information in the discussion.Following discussion of the five key concepts, makesure students are comfortable finding information onthe Rain Forest Information Sheets then begin theactivity.Share some additional background information onforest benefits with students, as time permits.Rain forest facts to share with the class: Many songbirds from the United States fly south to spendthe winter in tropical rain forests. Burning rain forestsdestroys the birds’ winter habitat meaning fewer birds willsurvive to return in the spring.10 National Arbor Day Foundation 17,000 species become extinct every year in the world’stropical rainforests.

arborday.org/postercontestThe Activity: Create a forest ecosystemand observe factors that impact itExplain that each student will now create asection of tropical rain forest that, when combinedas a class, will form a tropical rain forest ecosystem.Pass out the Plants and Animals of the RainForest - Cutout Sheet (page 18) to each student aswell as pieces of Fun Tak or tape.(NOTE: A minimum of twelve sections of rainforest are needed for this activity. In a classroomof less than 12 students, have each student createtwo sections of rain forest.)Remind students that it takes many more plants andplant eaters at the bottom of the food chain to support a few animals at the top of the food chain.Students should each select from their cutout sheet: 2 large carnivores 3 small carnivores or omnivores 6 herbivores 3 special rain forest plants.Explain each image represents a population of thatplant or animal that a section of rain forest cancomfortably support.As students make their selections, they should referback to the Rain Forest Information Sheets. Thiswill help them place their plants and animals in thecorrect forest layer and determine if the animal theyare placing in the rain forest has a food source inthat area. Remind them that some animals need aspecific food source to survive. For example, the3-toed sloth must have a trumpet tree available forits primary food source. A student may put in atrumpet tree without a sloth, but cannot have a slothwithout a trumpet tree. (Quetzal needs wild avocado.)Allow students 10 minutes to select and place theirplants and animals in the correct forest layer on theTropical Rain Forest Worksheet. (If using tape,remind students to roll the tape and place theirselections in lightly so they will be able to movethem later.) While students are working, list all 24plants and animals from the Information Sheets onthe board and label a separate section of the board“Extinct or Endangered Species.”When students have completed their rain forest section, conduct a forest inventory. Read the name ofeach plant/animal listed on the board and ask studentsto raise their hand if they have that animal or plant intheir section. Record the number of each response onthe board. If a plant or animal is not used in any rainforest section, list it in the “Extinct or EndangeredSpecies” section on the board.With a small class, put the completed rain forest sections side by side in three or four rows on the boardor on a table where students can gather. With a largerclass, have students remain at their desks and simplyvisualize that the desks represent the entire area of therain forest ecosystem.Explain to students that farmers burn and clear rainforest for growing crops. Select a student to representa farmer and have the student remove his/her sectionof rain forest. Remind students when trees in a sectionof rain forest are removed, the animals can move to tryto find new homes, but the plants cannot and they diewith that section of forest.The student whose section was removed must now tryto find a home for his/her animals. The student mustpass animals from his/her section of rain forest to students whose rain forest sections were adjacent to thesection just removed. If the adjacent section does notalready have that animal in its forest, then the animalmay be placed there. If the animal already exists inthat section of forest, the animal must be passed onto another adjacent rain forest section and so on untilthere is space and food for it to survive.Remind students that if the animals need a certainplant as food (example: 3-toed sloth needs the trumpettree) the new rain forest section must have that plantavailable in order for the animal to survive.National Arbor Day Foundation 11

Step 1: Discover the importance of diverse forest ecosystems - BASIC ACTIVITYIf no section of rain forest can take a particularanimal, that animal dies and the picture is taped ortacked on the board by the animal name. (The studentwhose section of rain forest was removed may become the record keeper at the board.)Remind students that it is the layer of decaying material on the rain forest floor that is rich in nutrients, notthe soil itself. When people clear rain forest land forfarming they are only able to grow crops for a year ortwo before the soil runs out of nutrients. This land canno longer be used for farming and it is too depletedof nutrients to grow back to rain forest. Farmers areforced to clear more rain forest land to make a living. Clear another section of rain forest land. Repeatprocedure as before.Tell students another impact on tropical rain forests isranchers who slash and burn the forest to get land onwhich to pasture cattle. Remove one or two sectionsof rain forest. (Do this in two areas of the classroomto get all students involved.) Repeat the hunt forhabitat space as before.Continue removing rain forest sections until the effectof clearing the rain forest has impacted every student’srain forest section in one way or another. Conduct asecond forest inventory and record the numbers onthe board next to the starting numbers and discuss results. Look at how many populations of animals werelost.Ask:Did any populations become extinct?What animals were in the most danger and why?What effect did cutting rain forest trees have on theplants and animals in this ecosystem?How would loss of rain forest affect our lives?Ask students if they think the soil is the same in all12 National Arbor Day Foundationother forests. (Clarify that other types of forests usually have richer soil that will support regrowth of newtrees after clearing. Properly managed, most forestsare renewable, providing fresh air, clean water, habitatfor wildlife, and countless forest products. However,if new trees or ground cover are not planted where aforest area has been cleared, soil is in danger oferosion.)Explain that conflict exists over use of tropical rainforest land: choices include pasture for cattle or foresthabitat for many animals; short term food productionfor hungry people or long term availability of medicines and renewable rain forest products.Eco-tourism, expanded markets for sustainable rainforest products, and increased research in medicinaluses of rain forest plants are just some of the thingspeople are working on to try to preserve rain forestland and provide native people with income to support their families. Choices are tough and people havediffering viewpoints about use of this forested land.Ask students: What choices would you make?Assessment:Ask students to imagine they are a forest explorerwho has just discovered a new plant or animalspecies. They should name their new species, draw apicture of it, and describe in a written paragraph whatit eats, what kind of forest it lives in, what level/layerof the forest it lives in, what other animals might eatit, and include any other special adaptations orcharacteristics that help it survive its forestenvironment. Refer students to the Rubric.Alternative Assessment: Students draw a new forestcreature and show by illustration or describe orallythe details outlined in the assessment above.Additional Suggested Reading: The Great Kapok Tree

VocabularyBoreal forests – mostly conifer forests located in cold regions ofthe world.Food chain – the way plants and animals in an ecosystem areconnected by what they eat or what gives them energy.Broadleaf – trees that bear fruit and flowers; with leaves thatare flat, thin, and usually shed annually.Forest floor – bottom forest layer comprised of low groundplants, decomposing leaves, rotting logs, animal droppings, etc.Bromeliad – a cup-like rain forest plant; grows without soil.Herbivores - animals that eat only plants.Canopy – a top forest layer made up of intertwined branches,twigs, and leaves of tall trees, which form a shady “umbrella”over the rest of the forest.Liana - a thick woody vine found in rain forests.Carnivores - animals that eat other animals.Conifer – trees that bear cones and have needle-like or scalelike leaves. Most lose their leaves gradually and are evergreen.Deciduous – trees that lose their leaves in the fall.Decomposers – organisms that break down dead things andreturn the nutrients to the soil.Emergent layer – tall forest layer found in tropical rain forestsmade up of a few scattered trees that tower over the canopy.Evergreen - trees with leaves that remain alive and on the treethrough the winter into the next growing season.Omnivores - animals that eat both plants and animals.Temperate forests – are located in areas of the world withmoderate average temperatures and less severe winters. Oftenhave a mix of conifer and broadleaf trees.Tropical forests - forests generally found near the equatorwhere temperatures are warm year-round. Includes tropicalrain forests and tropical seasonal forests.Tropical rain forest – tropical forest with constant sun and rainyear-round; contains mostly broadleaf trees that keep theirleaves through the year.Tropical seasonal forest – tropical forest with a dry season anda wet season; can have either evergreen or deciduous trees.Understory – forest layer made up of bushes, shrubs, andyoung trees that have adapted to living in shade of taller trees.RUBRIC - How high can you grow?UnderstoryCanopyEmergent Tree Tops You participate a little inclass discussion and the rainforest ecosystem activity. You participate activelyin class discussion and therain forest ecosystem activity. You participate activelyin class discussion and therain forest ecosystem activity.(Worth 1/4 of your total score)(Worth 1/4 of your total score)(Worth 1/4 of your total score)plants are placed in the correctlayer of the forest on the TropicalRain Forest Worksheet. 8-11 of the animals or plantsare placed in the correct layerof the forest on the TropicalRain Forest Worksheet. 12-13 of the animals or 14 animals or plants are(Worth 1/4 of your total score)(Worth 1/4 of your total score)(Worth 1/4 of your total score)(Worth 1/4 of your total score) You are a “novice” forest ex- You are an “apprentice”forest explorer. You“discovered” (created andnamed) a new forest plant oranimal and helped ensure itssurvival by describing 3 or 4 ofthe 5 important points below: You are a “skilled” forest You are an “expert” forestForest Floor You do not participate inclass discussion or the rainforest ecosystem activity.(Worth 1/4 of your total score) Less than 8 of the animals orplorer. You “discovered” (createdand named) a new forest plantor animal but described lessthan 3 of the 5 important pointsbelow, which was not enoughinformation to help ensure itssurvival.1. what it eats2. what kind of forest it lives in3. what level/layer of the forestit lives in4. what other animals mighteat it5. other special adaptationsor characteristics of your newspecies(Worth one half of your total score)1. what it eats2. what kind of forest it lives in3. what level/layer of the forestit lives in4. what other animals mighteat it5. other special adaptationsor characteristics of your newspecies(Worth one half of your total score)plants are placed in the correctlayer of the forest on the Tropical Rain Forest Worksheet.explorer. You “discovered”(created and named) a newforest plant or animal andhelped ensure its survival byclearly describing 4 or 5 of the5 important points below:1. what it eats2. what kind of forest it lives in3. what level/layer of the forestit lives in4. what other animals mighteat it5. other special adaptationsor characteristics of your newspecies(Worth one half of your total score)placed in the correct layerof the forest on the TropicalRain Forest Worksheet.explorer. You “discovered”(created and named) a newforest plant or animal andhelped ensure its survival byclearly describing all 5 of theimportant points below:1. what it eats2. what kind of forest it lives in3. what level/layer of the forestit lives in4. what other animals mighteat it5. other special adaptationsor characteristics of your newspecies(Worth one half of your total score)National Arbor Day Foundation 13

14 National Arbor Day FoundationBoreal ForestTropic of CapricornTropic of Cancerregions of the world. The growing s

living things and interrelationships in that environment demonstrate understanding of a forest ecosystem by creating an animal and describing its adaptations to live in one of three forest ecosystems Time Recommended: 60 - 90 minutes Materials Needed: Phot